


Remember What You Came Here For

by lalunlore



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Abandonment, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, College, Depression, During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Family Loss, Father Figures, Grief/Mourning, How Do I Tag, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loss of Parent(s), Men Crying, Mentor/Protégé, Mentors, My First Fanfic, Not Beta Read, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Recovery, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 06:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18138527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalunlore/pseuds/lalunlore
Summary: The people Sam loves keep leaving him. He gets a little wreckless.Canon-compliant (I think) backstory set during of Tron Legacy/ Missing scene beginning after Flynn's disappearance and ending after the ENCOM heist.





	Remember What You Came Here For

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> 1) Sam is drinking a bud light dueing the scene that I've made the end of this fic. You can either ignore that completely, decide it was non-alcoholic, or interpret it as Sam finding himself well enough to enjoy a single 6oz beer every once in a while. I've never personally known an alcoholic to do this, but y'know., just putting that out here.  
> 2) this isn't beta read. this isn't even me-read. i wrote it like 5 years ago and now I'm posting it without review lmfao. if it's lacking, blame a middle-schooler.
> 
> i've actually had this chillin in my docs for several years I've only just now actually gotten an ao3. It's the only fic I've ever written-- there wasn't anything like it, so I wrote it. It's not super fleshed out or anything, but I just needed to exist. Tron Legacy has always been my favourite movie and I watch it whenever I'm upset need a pick-me-up.  
> When I was younger I kinda saw myself in Sam's behaviour in the beginning, his recklessness and his disregard for his own safety and him up on the roof. depressed me identified with sam flynn, so here we are.
> 
> This is a small fandom so this is gonna be a really niche fic but anyway I hope someone finds and enjoys it. Without further ado...

He didn't understand.

 

Sam's father said he loved him-- he sure acted like he did-- so then why did he leave? And why did he never come back?

 

For a while, Sam was angry. He was angry at his dad for leaving, and at everyone else for giving up on his dad; he was angry at the world. His mom died before he really knew her, his dad vanished when he was only eight. Then his grandpa, when he was twelve, and his gran just 5 years later. He was only seventeen, and everyone he loved had left him. And now he had been passed on to Alan.

 

_ 'He might act like he cares, _ ' Sam thought bitterly,  _ 'but he's only doing this because he's dad's friend. Because I'm in the will. I'm an obligation to him. I'm a burden _ .'

 

Eventually the sadness subsided, and the anger. His loved ones just kept leaving. Eventually, he became numb to it all. He pushed down his feelings and hid behind his tough-guy façade, wore a devil-may-care attitude like armour. He lived recklessly and ignored the looks his teachers and most painfully, his surrogate father, gave him. He stopped caring about school, about his hobbies, about anything. He got in fist fights and he got wasted and he carved lines into his skin and if he drank enough, he cried. But none if it made him feel less hollow, or less alone.

 

When he turned eighteen he moved out of Alan's guestroom and into a CalTech dorm, just to get the old man off his back. He tried half-heartedly in the classes he bothered attending during the day and drank himself to sleep every night. Once, a few months into his first semester, his roommate, Jake, had come in late Friday night after a party and found him passed out in the tub, fully clothed and soaking wet.

"Hey, Sam," He called out to his roommate. When Sam didn't stir, he tried a few more times. "Come on man, I gotta shower," he grumbled. Finally, Jake shook him by the shoulder, muttering under his breath. Sam woke with a start and landed a right hook clean on Jake's jaw.

 

Jake really wasn't a bad guy. He was out by the the time classes started Monday morning.

 

Now Sam had a single, and he was even more alone than before.

 

One night-- on a fucking Wednesday-- he got himself absolutely shitfaced. There was no trigger, no one thing that made his room seem darker, smaller, or his head louder. He'd woken up at two in the afternoon, started drinking, and had been steadily, ferociously emptying bottles since. Now, it was eleven o’clock at night and he wasn't crying, he  _ wasn't _ . He was almost twenty and everyone in his life had left him. ( _ Why did everyone fucking leave him? _ )  It was quarter past one and he was miserable and sobbing and he was dialing the only number he still knew.

 

"Sam?" He picked up on the first ring. "It's a little late for a social call, don't you think? Everything alright? Sam?" Alan's voice was fuzzy, like he'd been asleep.  _ 'Fuck _ ,’ Sam kicked himself.  _ 'I woke him up, why the fuck did I-- _ ’

 

"Sam? Are you there?" As Alan grew more concerned, the panic had him sounding more awake. Sam sputtered and coughed, once, and then for the first time in God knows how long, he spoke.

 

"I don't know what to do, Alan," he croaked out. His throat was raw from disuse and the burn of straight liquor, making it almost painful to speak. He licked his lips and then swallowed, forcing himself to speak. "I don't-- I can't do this Alan, I can't, I  _ can't _ ," he rushed out. There was salt on his lips and blood under his fingernails. Gasping for air through building sobs he almost missed his god-father speaking.

 

"Sammy, where are you? I'll come pick you up." Sam could feel Alan's worry, his terror through the phone. He'd had found out about Sam's... less than savoury  _ coping mechanisms _ when he was sixteen. The sleeve of his dad's old CalTech sweatshirt had ridden up, exposing raw marks layered over old scars. Alan had made him stop. Alan cried, a lot; made him promise, and all Sam could do was nod numbly and curl in on himself.

He was startled out of his thoughts, unaware how long he'd been staring off, at the sound of Alan's pleading voice. "Sammy for the love of God, please answer me. Are you there? Can't do what?"

 

"All of it," Sam slurred. "All of it."  Everything was too much. Everyone left him and he was unlovable and, and--. He gasped in a sharp breath of air and a sob shuddered through him, tears dripping off his chin.

 

" _ None _ of that is true, Sammy, none of it.  _ I love you _ . You're like a son to me, I'm here for you. Always." Alan pleaded with him. Sam hadn't meant to say all that out loud, didn't even know he had. He ran his hands through his greasy hair, feeling even worse for it. His fingers caught on knots and tangles and he settled for tugging on it, hard, before sliding his hands down to his face. Tears and snot dampened his rough palms and he struggled to speak.

 

"I'm sorry,"  he choked, "I'm so sorry Alan."

 

On the other end of the phone, unseen by the young man, Alan clenched his eyes shut. He wanted desperately to help his godson. He just wanted him to be okay. 

 

"There's nothing to apologize for, Sammy. Just tell me where you are and I'll come get you. Please."

 

“Dorms. Tercero," Sam forced out. "Hawthorn. I'll-- I'll come. I'll come outside," he managed. He put his phone on the nightstand and pushed off his bed with both hands. He stumbled before gaining his balance and looked around his dark broom closet of a room, wondering when it had gotten this bad. Mounds of dark fabric covered the floor and piled up on top of his desk. Food wrappers littered the floor by his bed and his alarm clock sat in pieces on his bedside table.

"I'm already on my way," Alan promised. Sam heard the faint sound of a car door slam and a seat belt buckle. He drunkenly nodded, regretting it immediately. The room swam and he grabbed the nightstand for support and lowered himself onto his stained mattress.

"Okay," he choked into the phone, collecting the sense for a verbal response this time. “Okay.” He hung up and took a moment to scrub the tears off his face. Trying to massage away the dizziness and the black spots obscuring his vision, he stumbled over the piles of things left to rot on his floor. He stood up once more and picked his way as carefully as his drunken mind could manage through the landfill. He pulled his favourite leather jacket roughly off the coat hook and grabbed for the doorknob, not surprised to find it unlocked. He didn't care enough to lock it.

 

Still sniffling and scrubbing roughly at his cheeks, Sam stumbled out into the hall and down the stairs to the small lobby, squinting against the bright light flooding out from the fluorescent ceiling panels. He walked unsteadily outside and was greeted by the sight of his godfather's car idling at the curb. He jerked open the passenger door and clambered in, not bothering with preamble before shoving his face into Alan's shoulder and  _ sobbing _ . Alan put a protective arm around Sam's shoulders and left his other hand to rest at the back of his head.

"It'll be alright, Sammy," Alan attempted to sooth him with the old nickname. He carded his fingers through Sam's hair, gentle detangling the knots there and waited for him to calm down. His godson may have grown up and moved out, but he still needed him, and Alan would be there for him-- no matter what.

 

After that night Sam spent 3 months Alan's guest room-- ‘ _ this is your room Sammy. You aren't a guest here _ ’-- once again, flitting in and out of therapy once a week. He stopped drinking himself into oblivion and put down the blade again, for good. He officially dropped out of college with encouragement from his doctors and counselors and his Godfather. He was getting better, he really was, but he still felt empty. Alan--and  _ fuck _ did he love Alan-- was there every step of the way. He took time off work, drove Sam to his doctor's, and just... held him. When Sam cried in the middle of the night, when he couldn't get out of bed, or when he just... sat there, unseeing and unfeeling. Alan held him through all of it. After three months of steady improvement, he even brought Sam to see an old garage-turned-apartment with a killer view a friend of a friend owned. Sam signed the lease immediately and hugged Alan until neither could stand any longer. Alan trusted him to live by himself, to take care of himself. He still felt alone, but he knew he had Alan.

 

He found Marv outside a bar when he was barely twenty-one. He'd been standing outside the mouth of the alley, new-- real-- ID in hand, debating going inside, when he heard the quiet whine-bark of a filthy mut. Casting one last look back at the grimy windows, he went and scooped up the dog and instead went to the pet store. He had him cleaned, bought dog food instead of Jack Daniels, and took him home. He stayed clean, and now he was a little less alone.

 

Two and a half years later he was twenty-three, he was clean, and he was miserable. After a while of sobriety and unmarred skin, Sam eventually took to other ways to feel alive, ease that hollow ache under his ribs. Risking his life, pulling dangerous stunts; he got in car chases and got into fist fights. He just wanted to  _ feel _ something, and in truth, it didn't matter to him if he lived or died. He tried not to think about Alan.

 

Over the years, Sam's self-medication had gotten him in trouble more times than he'd care to think about. He was on a first-name basis with nearly everyone in the police department, and the impound lot had his credit card on file.

 

"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Sam." It was his third arrest in as many months and Alan was losing his patience with the younger man. "You're going to get yourself locked up, or killed! Is that what you want, Sam?" Alan looked distraught and utterly, completely exhausted. The walk from the station to the car lot seemed to take all of his strength.

"No!" Sam scrubbed at his face before threading his fingers into his cropped hair. He tugged once, hard, and some of the tension seemed to ease out of him. "Look, I appreciate you bailing me out--"

"--again," Alan interrupted. Sam shot him a weak glare, but he knew Alan was right. He put up with a lot from Sam over the years. He had every right to be tired of it.

Arriving at the impound lot, he gave Carl his receipt with a quiet 'hey, man,' and shoved on his helmet unceremoniously. ‘ _ See, I'm careful’  _ he thought. Take that Alan.

 

"I  _ appreciate _ you looking out for me Alan, really, but can we have this talk some other time?" He climbed onto his father's Ducati and turned to Alan once more. "Like never?"  Flipping down his visor he sped off, only feeling a little (a lot) guilty at leaving the only person that cared about him standing alone in an impound lot. He went 95 in a 60 despite his arrest only hours before until he reached the apartment.

 

A month later he robbed ENCOM.

 

Racing through the skyscraper, he went up instead of down. It would have been just as easy to take the stairs or the elevator to the lobby, but his way was more fun; stealing ENCOM's tech was only half the adventure he had planned. The wind whipped around him, standing on the edge of the crane. He looked down at the city below him, at the ground, and he considered not opening his parachute at all. Considered jumping and letting the ground break his fall. "Hey, dad," he murmured, like being closer death brought him closer to the dead. The security guard startled him out of his thoughts and for the briefest moment he felt guilty.

"Where you gonna run to now?" The guard shouted and stalked toward him. Sam watched as the guard approached him, thinking he'd won, and explained with a shrug why he'd lost. Then he dropped off into the night air, and if he waited a little too long opening his parachute, well, that was between him and dad.

 

A theft, a sky dive, a car chase, and an arrest later, Sam was back in his garage, a little more alive yet feeling more empty then before. Alan, it seemed, knew exactly when Sam needed him (aside from always).

 

“Why're you in my apartment Alan?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> oh! my name is flores btw. if you see this, drop a comment saying something dumb like "hi" or "grass" to lmk im not shouting into the void, yeah?
> 
> EDIT:  
> I wrote this fic a very, very long time ago, and have lived and learned since then. I've actually visited the CalTech campus, and I've actually gone to college. In my first year i've begun to learn just how lonely college really is. If you've ever felt alone in a room full of people, you have some idea of what it's luke to be in college, emotionally exhausted and feeling isolated amoungst tens of thousands of people. I also want to make clear the following information: alcoholism in college is a massive problem and its easy to dismiss because of the culture surrounding drinking but it's so, so important to look out for your peers, bring up or report troubling behaviour, and seek medical attention if you even THINK it might be necessary. In the scene wherein Alan picks him up, our boy was drunk enough/described to have been drinking enough that he likely should've gone to the hospital. 
> 
> If you are struggling with grief, loneliness, depression, self harm, substance abuse, or any other life problems, I HIGHLY encourage you to seek the help of the resources available to you, because there are so many services out there ready and wanting to help you. Sam was a prime example of how we can let loneliness destroy us in a feedback loop of intensifying isolation, but we don't have to live that way.


End file.
